Obama 'Played Cards' During Bin Laden Raid

August 15, 2013

Obama aide Reggie Love describes how he and the president played "about 15 games of spades" during operation which killed Osama Bin Laden.
By Ari Soffer
First Publish: 8/15/2013, 1:01 PM
Barack Obama
AFP photo

US President Barack Obama played cards with an aid during the raid in May 2011 which killed Al Qaeda founder and chief Osama Bin Laden.

Reggie Love, a longtime aide of the President, made the revelations during a forum hosted by the Washington D.C.-based "Artists & Athletes Alliance."

"It was a very long day," Love recalled.

"I spent the entire day at the White House. Typically at the weekends he [the President] works a half day but that Sunday we ...worked until almost midnight."

He continued:

"Most people were like down in the Situation Room and [President Obama] was like, 'I'm not going to be down there, I can't watch this entire thing.'"

Instead, he says that the two of them - along with White House photographer Pete Souza and another Obama aide Marvin Nicholson - retreated to the private dining room to play "fifteen games of spades."

It's not clear how Love's align with the president's claim to have watched the raid in "real time," along with his national security team whilst sitting in the Situation Room itself - although it's not clear precisely when he stepped out to play cards.

A year after the raid, Obama described the operation as "the longest 40 minutes of my life," in an interview with NBC.